Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Bat People on the Moon?

While we're waiting for this Friday's action packed installment of the Moon Prince, I thought it might be fun to show you a few of my influences in writing this part of the story. The idea to have bat-people on the Moon actually goes back all the way to 1835, to a famous hoax published in the old New York Sun that claimed astronomers had spotted creatures on the lunar surface using an enormous new telescope. Wonderful drawings of these bat-men were published and caused a huge stir at the time. Here are a few of them:

And my list of influences for this part of the story wouldn't be complete without mentioning Jack Kirby's great comics series Kamandi the Last Boy on Earth, which I devoured as a kid. The ninth issue of the story featured bat people battling astronauts in a balloon! Here's the cover (you can click on any of these images for larger versions):